Essay: The Hunting of the PettyDwarves
by Gecco
Summary: an essay of maybe why Mim is a villian and the convient excuse given by the Elves about the hunting of the PettyDwarves


Authors notes: _This is an essay I did awhile back and I am posting it to clear up some space on my computer. I also that it was a very interesting subject matter…_

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"Hunting of the Petty-Dwarves" : Terrible mistake or convenient genocide?

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With the Sack of Doriath, the Murder of Thingol and the stealing of the Nauglamir always thrown around in fics to show how ugly and bad the Dwarves are, and often used as an excuse by many fans and Authors to absolve the Elves of their own bigotries. I decided to shed a little light on a nasty little skeleton hanging in the perfect and beautiful Elves walk-in closet that has bugged me ever since I first read the Silmarillion. 

I've read some very interesting and excellent fics and a essays or two about the Petty-Dwarves and how vile and evil Mim was, but I always found it interesting that no one seems to want to admit that Mim was likely a 'made-monster'. He's clearly quite poor, mad and just plain pitiful when Turin and the others come upon he and his sons, even killing one of his sons as they try and flee. Now, I'm not trying absolve his evil deeds and I agree that Mim was a despicable little troll, but it always bothered me that no one seems to care that he was the last of his kind! I mean this guy could give Gollum a run for his money when it comes to being a sad, nasty and miserable retch.

The thing that always fascinated me about him, is what drove him to become the creature we see captured by Turin, and who he later betrays. What made Mim the miserable retch he is?

I'm sure most are familiar with the story of the Petty-Dwarves and Mim? Well maybe I'm the only one, but the story and excuse of the Beleriand Elves as to why they hunted the Noegyth Nibin always struck me as a bit… fishy.

I might be able to buy their excuse if it was a _few_ incidents where they mistook their attackers for animals… but not when they hunted down an entire people.

And what of these supposed attacks? The Petty-Dwarves seemed to have been smaller and where probably starting to evolve differently from regular Dwarves. I personally suspect that aside from becoming smaller, they where also becoming lighter and thinner, allowing them more agility and speed, instead of the thick muscles needed for strength. But however different they where, they were still an off-shoot of Dwarves and so would still know how to make weapons. So unless they where running out of the woods naked, clawing and biting the Elves in these supposed "attacks", I don't buy the Elves excuse.

I don't think it takes a genius to realize that not many animals walk on two legs and are able to fire a bow an arrow or try and come at you swinging an axe or knife, no matter how crudely made.

Maybe it's because I'm half Native American (Black Foot), but this whole incident and the reason there is so little information and talk about this incident is that the Elves are hiding something they did that was really ugly. The Silmarillion does say that the Petty-Dwarves loved none but themselves and where the attackers, yet I think it is safe to say that the Silmarillion on the whole is tilted quite a bit in favor of the Elves.

"We didn't know what they where, we thought the Noegyth Nibin strange two-legged animals," seems not only derogatory, but rather lame coming from a race of people supposedly being the greatest of all the free peoples, having the best vision and hearing of all the other races. I understand that this was before the Elves met the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost that came west over the Mountains, but I mean where the Elves _really_ that stupid and ignorant?

Yes, the original Petty-Dwarves where driven out by the other Dwarves for being too small, deformed, lazy and rowdy. But obviously that had been several generations in the past by the time the Elves of Beleriand showed up, and in that time clearly the Petty-Dwarves had long settled into the valley and where living there for quite awhile. Who is to say that younger generations of those original individuals that had been exiled, where all bad or evil?

The Elves say that they where attacked and didn't know what they where firing at (which I don't particularly buy), I don't doubt the Elves where attacked, however _they _were the invaders. The Elves in this case where the ones in the wrong. They where the ones helping themselves to already occupied lands. It's like when the White Man was expanding into the West in America, invading and helping themselves to lands that were the rightful homes of many Indian nations and tribes. Yet whenever the various pioneers or settlers where attacked, the Indians where immediately blamed, called savages and animals. Even though they where defending what was rightfully theirs to begin with.

Calling and thinking of other people as simply savages and or animals, allows those wanting to take land and resources from the original indigenous people, to do so without guilt, allowing them to feel even entitled to it. After all, their just animals? Humans have been doing this to other humans around the world for centuries. Their still doing it even now.

Example: In WWII the Japanese committed horrible atrocities in Manchuria, Nangking and many other counties in the Pacific. Their excuse for their horrible actions after the war was over, was that they simply thought of the Chinese and other people as animals or not even alive, as objects. Similar thinking also happened in Germany with the Nazis.

Beleriand clearly was a desirable piece of realistate, with forests and the defense of the Mountains. Is it really so far fetched that the Elves would willingly or unconsciously decide to get ride of the strange people they found already inhabiting the valley and take the land as their own? Then just say "Oops! We didn't know that they where actually people." Then decide leave the Petty-Dwarves alone…after they had conveniently slaughtered most of them. Guilty or ignorant, by the time they stopped it was to little, to late, if they had clearly hunted so many of the Petty-Dwarves that they couldn't recover their numbers and soon died out. With only a few isolated survivors left to dwindle, eventually leaving only Mim and his two sons.

Could this be the root cause of why Mim became the pathetic retch we meet later? A villain that should be pitied as well as scorned?

Either way, the more times I turn this around and look at this little "incident" in the Silmarillion a new way, the more it looks like a cover-up. And before anyone goes "No, that's not possible! Elves are good and would never do that!" just take a little look at all the ugly things the Elves have done to their own kind, the Kinslayings anyone?

If that was to their own people, if Elves are capable of doing such things to other Elves, is it really such a long stretch that they would be capable of knowingly slaughtering another race? An off-shot of a race of beings that they consider ugly, unlovely and less then them? Then cover it up with the lame excuse of "Oops! We didn't know, we just thought they where strange animals."

Is it possible that the beautiful and lovely Elves, wisest and fairest amongst all beings, can be just as ugly, violent and ignorant as any Man, Dwarf, or Hobbit?


End file.
